In general, silver halide color photographic materials, after exposed, are subjected to color development to form color images upon reaction of a dye-forming coupler with an oxidized aromatic primary amine color developing agent. In this system, color reproduction by a subtractive color system is employed, in which to reproduced blue, green and red images, complementary color images, i.e., yellow, magenta and cyan images are employed.
There are broadly used acylacetoanilide type couplers to form yellow dye images. Specifically, benzoylacetoanilide type compounds which exhibit a superior color forming property are employed in color film and pivaloylacetoanilide type couplers which exhibit superior color tone are employed in color paper. Basic properties required in these couplers include not only forming a dye but also exhibiting various characteristics such as the formed dye exhibiting superior spectral absorption characteristics, the dye forming rate being relatively high, relatively high color density, and the formed dye exhibiting high fastness against light heat or moisture. Along with recent trend desiring further enhanced speed and improved image quality in photographic materials, there has been demanded development of a coupler which forms a dye exhibiting an enhanced molecular extinction coefficient, superior color density and improved light fastness.
Examples of a yellow dye forming coupler (hereinafter, also denoted simply as a yellow coupler) which achieved superior color reproducibility, enhanced dye formability and improved light fastness include a yellow coupler which contains an alkoxy group and an acylamino group at the 2-position and the 5-position of the anilide portion, respectively, as described in JP-A No. 63-123047 (hereinafter, the term JP-A refers to Publication of Japanese Patent Application). U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,149,886, 4,095,984 and 4,477,563 and British Patent No. 1,204,680 disclosed malondianilide type yellow couplers, which exhibiteded in an improved dye forming property but azomethine dyes obtained from which caused tailing in the absorption of the longer wavelength side, and an improvement in color reproduction is therefore desired. N,N-substituted malondiamide type yellow coupler described in JP-A Nos. 4-218042, 5-11416 and 2002-296738 achieved improved color reproducibility but was not at the satisfied level in dye forming property. Alkoxyacetoanilide type yellow couplers described in French Patent No. 991,453, U.S. Pat. No. 2,500,487 and JP-A No. 57-151944 achieved superior color reproducibility but was still insufficient in dye forming property.
A malonamide monoester type yellow couplers described JP-A No. 5-313323 had no problem in color reproduction and resulted in improved dye forming property but were unsatisfactory in fastness against light, heat and moisture. There were disclosed a pyrroloylacetoanilide type yellow coupler described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,674,667 and 6,057,087; a thenoylacetoanilide type yellow coupler described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,693,458; a benzofuranyl type yellow coupler described in JP-A No. 2000-221646; an imidazoloneacetoanilide type yellow coupler described in JP-A No. 2002-341498; yellow couplers having nitrogen-containing heterocyclic group in the acyl portion of the acylacetoanilide, as described in, for example, JP-A Nos. 2001-281781 (page 1-14), 2001-249434 (page 1-18) and 2000-2976 (page 27-38). However, these couplers, which achieved improvements in dye forming property and color reproduction, are not satisfied in dye forming property and fastness.